Good reads: Google to ding guest posts, Patch.com, sponsored content and more

To do good writing, read good writing. Here’s the good writing I’ve been reading this week:

Blogs that use guest posts will be penalized this year by Google, according to a Problogger post that got a lot of mileage this week.

Before you start freaking out about all the guest posts you’ve ever run on your food, gardening, parenting or tech blog, keep reading.

Google is changing its search algorithms so websites that run posts with what are considered to be spammy links don’t get as much search-engine juice, which makes them appear higher up in results lists. Many of those spammy links can be found in guest posts and contributor bios on websites that run “low-quality” information, according to Problogger. Spammy links are links that don’t make sense in the context of the posts that run on your site, says Problogger contributor Jeff Foster. Notice I didn’t call him a guest poster? Problogger doesn’t either – they’re already following their own suggestions.

What to do?

• You don’t need to stop accepting guest posts. Just make sure the posts you’re accepting are from people or companies you know.
• If you don’t know them, check them out thoroughly before agreeing to run anything they write.
• Check any and all links in their posts and delete anything that smells spammy.
• If you don’t already have a clause in your guest post guidelines giving you have the right to delete links, add it.

Problogger also suggests removing the words “Guest Post” from the headlines or body copy of posts. “There is nothing wrong with allowing someone to contribute to your blog,” Foster writes, “but if you wouldn’t trust an article in the newspaper that says the writer is a ‘guest author,’ do you think Google will trust it?”

I’m not sure I’d go as far as removing all “guest post” labels. I’d already stopped including the phrase on headlines. The WordCount redesign we did back in December created a different way to identify posts as being written by a guest contributor. I’ll still include an editor’s note at the beginning of posts written by someone other than me. Since I normally do all the writing, I think I owe it to readers to tell them when someone else has taken over for the day. And I’ll continue to run contributors’ bios at the end of their posts.

Other good reads from this week

Life after Patch.com: A Newspaper Editor Returns to Newsprint (The Awl) – Remember when Patch.com was going to save local news? Well, it hasn’t worked out that way. At least not according to this insider account, given to The Awl by a former Patch.com local editor who uses the alias Sammy Sturgeon in this long, and often-times rambling, Q&A. Sturgeon says Patch.com was short on budgets for boots on the ground reporters and freelancers, heavy on MBA managers who had no idea what producing the news entailed. Sturgeon, who I”m guessing is somewhere in his 30s, says he made $48,000 working for a Patch.com site in northern California, and is now making $23,000 working at a small daily in the state’s Central Valley. Ouch.

Ben Smith and Andrew Sullivan battle in sponsored content throwdown! (Poynter) – We’ve gone from daily stories asking what content marketing is, to daily stories arguing whether publications (and writers) who practice it are smart or sellouts. This week, BuzzFeed Editor in Chief Smith and The Dish’s Sullivan went at it during a Social Media Week panel in New York. Smith, who charges $20,000 for a sponsored story on BuzzFeed, defended the practice as a new model for news revenue, which Sullivan said “set off my Orwell bells,” according to a write up in Capital New York. Read the Capital story for more of the nitty gritty from their debate.

Is LinkedIn turning into MySpace? (iMedia Connection) – Blogger Dan Roche argues that the social network’s cluttered front page, with its standing features that are impossible to turn off or customize, and verging on meaningless groups is limiting its usefulness. I couldn’t agree more.

Tax resources for freelancers (Freelancers Union) – If you’re new to freelancing, you may not know all the ins and outs of filing tax returns as a 1099 contracts. That means you have slightly more than seven weeks to get up to speed before April 15 rolls around. The Freelancers Union rounds up helpful resources on what to know, when to file and key deductions. The union also links to a handful of accountants – mostly in New York – who offer discounts to FU members.